The Spertus Institute for Jewish Learning & Leadership, formerly the College of Jewish Studies and then the Spertus Institute
for Jewish Studies, is a Chicago-based educational institute organized in 1924
by the Board of Jewish Education of Chicago to provide opportunities
for systematic Jewish studies and for training teachers.

The Institute
opened under the leadership of Alexander Dushkin, the executive director
of the Board of Jewish Education, with five students, who met in rented
quarters in different parts of the city. Dushkin later established
the Department of Education at The Hebrew University. In 1935 Leo
Honor, the college's administrator, succeeded Dushkin as director
of the Board of Jewish Education with Samuel M. Blumenfield serving
as registrar and, later, dean of the college. Under the leadership
of Dr. Leo Honor and Rabbi Samuel Blumenfield, the identity of the
college as a distinct institution began to emerge. In 1942, it was
authorized to grant degrees by the Illinois Department of Education.
As a result of the steady growth of the college, the Board of Jewish
Education recommended that it become a separate corporation with its
own board of governors. In 1945 the college was incorporated as a
Not-for-Profit Illinois Corporation. In its charter, issued
that year, the institutional mission was defined as "Maintaining
and operating a College in which youths and adults may receive an
education on a college and post graduate level in… any subject
relating to Jews and Judaism." This represented an expansion
of the college's original mission of being primarily a teachers'
training institution. In 1946 it moved into its own building and expanded
its program to include studies leading to the Bachelor of Hebrew Literature
degree and teachers' diplomas. With the addition to the faculty
of distinguished scholars from Europe and Israel, the college initiated
graduate studies. Spertus College now offers eight post-graduate degrees,
and through distance learning options serves students in 36 U.S. states
and six foreign countries. The Spertus Center for Nonprofit Management
provides working professionals with tools to succeed in the nonprofit
and public service sectors, through its master's program and
continuing education opportunities.

From the 1940s until the 1960s, the college served
as the central institution in Chicago and in the American Midwest
for the training of Jewish educators and as the central institution
in Chicago for Hebrew culture, thereby expressing the ideology of
Cultural Zionism that characterized its early history, programs, and
curricula. By 1948, a department of graduate studies offering bachelor's,
master's, and doctoral degrees had been initiated. During the
late 1950s and early 1960s, cantors and choir directors were trained
for synagogues through its Institute for Jewish Music. From 1965 the
college has served other colleges and universities as a department
of Judaic studies, in which students may pursue a major or minor curriculum
as well as elective courses. From the 1940s until the mid-1960s, the
college operated a summer camp, Camp Sharon, and initiated and substantially
expanded continuing education programs in Chicago and surrounding
suburbs. Many renowned refugee scholars who migrated to America to
escape Hitler served on the Spertus faculty during these years.

In 1968, Maurice Spertus donated his impressive collection
of Jewish ceremonial objects to the college, thus beginning the Spertus
Museum. In 1970, the College of Jewish Studies honored the outstanding
and ongoing support of the families of Maurice and his brother Herman
Spertus by changing its name to the Spertus College of Judaica. In
1974, Spertus moved to its present Michigan Avenue location. That
same year, Norman and Helen Asher, recognizing the importance of a
first class library, endowed what is now the Norman and Helen Asher
Library, which contains more than 100,000 books. The Asher Library
also includes the Targ Center for Jewish Music and the Chicago Jewish
Archives.

In 1968, the College of Jewish Studies was officially
separated from the Board of Jewish Education. Among the distinguished
scholars who served on the faculty were Simon Halkin, Simon Rawidowicz,
Meyer Waxman, Samuel Feigen, Moses Shulvass, Judah Rosenthal, and
Byron Sherwin. Samuel B. Blumenfield was its first president, followed
in 1954 by Abraham Duker, and in 1962, by David Weinstein. In 1984,
Dr. Howard A. Sulkin became the organization's seventh president.

In 1971, Spertus College started the first college
level course in the Midwest in Holocaust Studies, and in 1975 Spertus
Museum created the Bernard and Rochelle Zell Holocaust Memorial, the
first permanent Holocaust exhibition in North America, the centerpiece
of the Bernard and Rochelle Zell Center for Holocaust Studies.

In 1987, Spertus College established The Joseph Cardinal
Bernardin Center for the Study of Eastern European Jewry. Jointly
sponsored with the Archdiocese of Chicago, the center is dedicated
to promoting interfaith dialogue and increased understanding between
eastern European and Jewish communities.

In 1993, the Spertus College of Judaica officially
became the Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies, reflecting its multidisciplinary
identity. Along with the name change, reflecting its multifaceted
approach to the study of Jewish culture, came a renewed declaration
of institutional goals and new long term strategies on how to implement
them.

In January 2013, the institute changed its name from
the Spertus Institute for Jewish Studies to the Spertus Institute
for Jewish Learning and Leadership.